Chapter 142
Blake
The implications hit like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Konstantin. The ghost we'd been chasing for weeks, the shadow behind every lead on Kara's parents. Diana Torres had told us Scarlett died because she'd photographed his account books for Celeste. Marcus Finch had mentioned Konstantin's reach extended from Los Angeles to Alaska, his empire built on trafficking, extortion, and making people disappear.
And now he had our mate.
My wolf wanted to tear something apart, to paint the snow red and howl until the sky cracked. But Cole was right—we needed to think. Rage wouldn't save Kara. Strategy would.
"Why take her?" I forced the words through gritted teeth, making myself analyze instead of just react. "If Konstantin wanted her dead, there were easier ways. A sniper. Poison. Why risk a messy extraction?"
"Because she's worth more alive." Asher's voice was flat, dead. The voice he used when delivering death sentences. "Her parents owed him money. Now she owes him. Or he thinks she has information about what Celeste and Connor knew, what they might have told her before they abandoned her."
"She was eight years old when they left," Cole protested, but his mint scent wavered with uncertainty. "What could she possibly know?"
"Doesn't matter what she actually knows." I could see the logic now, cold and brutal. "Matters what Konstantin thinks she knows. And even if she knows nothing..." I couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't voice what we were all thinking.
Even if she knew nothing, men like Konstantin had uses for pretty young women. Uses that made my wolf howl with murderous fury.
"We're wasting time." Asher was already moving toward the garage, his stride eating up ground with predatory efficiency. "Devon should have the security footage by now. We need to see exactly what happened, get a clear image of who took her."
We followed, three wolves in human skin stalking through snow that crunched too loud in the terrible silence. The garage door was already open, light spilling out onto the pristine white driveway.
And that's when I lost it.
---
The cars were lined up like soldiers: the silver Mercedes S-Class that belonged to Victoria, the black Cadillac Escalade that Marcus drove, a collection of luxury vehicles that represented our family's wealth and status. Symbols of the privilege that was supposed to protect us, keep us safe.
But Kara was gone. Taken from under our noses while we'd been busy playing Alpha, chasing threats at the border, failing her in every way that mattered.
The rage that had been building since I'd seen those handprints in the snow finally erupted. My wolf surged forward, and I didn't fight it. Didn't want to fight it.
I grabbed the Mercedes's front bumper with both hands, muscles flooding with supernatural strength, and lifted. The two-ton vehicle came up off the ground with a shriek of metal and hydraulics. For a moment, I held it overhead like a trophy, every fiber of my being screaming, and then I threw.
The Mercedes flipped through the air in a graceful arc before crashing down on top of the Cadillac with a sound like the end of the world. Metal crumpled, glass exploded, and the vehicles' alarms started shrieking—red and blue lights strobing across the snow in a mockery of emergency response.
But I wasn't done.
I kicked the side door of a Range Rover, my boot going through the reinforced panel like it was cardboard. Ripped the side mirror off a Lexus and hurled it into the darkness. Grabbed the back bumper of a BMW and tore it clean off, the metal screaming as bolts sheared.
"BLAKE!" Cole's mint scent wrapped around me, his hands grabbing my shoulders. "Stop! This isn't helping!"
"Helping?" I spun on him, and he flinched back from whatever he saw in my face. "She was right there! A few hundred meters away! We were supposed to be protecting her, and instead we were—"
My voice broke. I couldn't finish. Couldn't say that we'd been discussing border patrols while our mate was being drugged and kidnapped. That I'd been checking tactical maps while she was fighting for her life on a frozen roof.
That I'd failed her. Again.
Asher's hands joined Cole's, both of them pulling me back from the wreckage I'd created. His ebony-tobacco was sharp with command, trying to cut through my gunpowder rage. "Enough. This solves nothing."
"Nothing solves anything!" I was shaking, my whole body trembling with the need to destroy, to hurt, to make someone pay. "Don't you get it? We did this! We drove her away! She was so scared of us that she'd rather freeze to death on a roof than stay in the same house, and that's when they got her!"
Tears were streaming down my face now, hot against my cold skin. "I told her she was fat. Worthless. A pig. I drew her suffering in a fucking sketchbook and then called her names to her face for four years. And she—she said we were a tumor. Something to cut out. She was right, Asher. We're poison, and now—"
"Blake." Cole's mint wrapped tighter, his voice breaking. "Please. I need you to hold it together. For her. We can't fall apart now."
But I was already falling. Had been falling since the moment I'd seen that empty bathroom, that silent bond, those desperate handprints in the snow.
"What if we never find her?" The words came out in a whisper, the worst fear I had. "What if she's already gone, and the last thing she remembers is us being monsters?"
Silence. Heavy and suffocating.
Then Asher's voice, rough but certain: "Then we make sure that's not what happens. We find her. We bring her home. And we spend the rest of our lives proving we're not the boys who hurt her anymore."
---
Asher
The garage door burst open, and suddenly we were surrounded.
Marcus strode out first, still dressed in his pajamas but radiating Alpha authority anyway. Behind him came Victoria in a silk robe, her ice-and-cedar scent sharp with alarm. Then the guards, the staff, dozens of pack members drawn by my earlier howl and now gaping at the destruction Blake had wrought.
Four luxury vehicles reduced to twisted metal. Alarms shrieking. Shattered glass glittering in the snow like diamonds. And in the center of it all, my brother—covered in blood from where he'd cut his hands on the wreckage, shaking like he was coming apart at the seams.
Victoria's eyes went wide, taking in the scene. "Blake! What in Moon Goddess's name—"
"Kara." I cut her off, my voice flat and cold. "Where is Kara?"
She blinked, confused. "What? She should be in her room, or the bathroom. You said you were giving her space to—"
"Where. Is. Kara." Each word was its own sentence, my ebony-tobacco flooding the garage with enough Alpha pheromones to make the lower-ranked wolves in the crowd drop to their knees.
Victoria's cedar-ice scent spiked with fear, but she held her ground. "I don't understand. She's inside, she's—"
"She's gone." Cole's mint had gone brittle and sharp. "Kidnapped. From the North Tower roof. Twenty minutes ago, maybe thirty."
The crowd erupted in shocked murmurs, but I only had eyes for my mother. Watching her face. Watching for any sign of guilt, of knowledge, of involvement.
Because Blake had found that glove in Kara's room. The one with Konstantin's mark. And Victoria had made it very clear she didn't want Kara as a daughter-in-law. Had spent years making Kara's life hell, had fought us every step of the way when we'd claimed her as our mate.
What if her hatred had driven her to do something unforgivable?
I moved toward her, each step deliberate. The crowd parted like water, wolves scrambling to get out of my path. My brothers flanked me—Blake still shaking but present, Cole's mint sharp with tension.
When I reached Victoria, I did something I'd never done before. Something that violated every pack protocol, every rule of respect between Alpha and Luna.